The ability to commodify and peddle human creativity always struck me as inherently suspect; a racket for lawyers and businessmen to get rich off the labor and thought of truly creative people.

Don't get me wrong. Artists, businessmen,and inventors certainly have a right to have their idea protected, they should get first crack at it, the first opportunity to benefit from it. I'm a writer myself, I'd certainly hate to see any of my published material being sold by someone else while I was denied any profit from it. But very often, that is exactly what happens, not in spite of patents and copyrights, but because of it.

The whole intellectual property system is way overdue for reform, it can be used to pervert and reverse its original purpose, to protect the original creator from exploitation by commercial middlemen. Not only are there new kinds of intellectual property, and new ways to propagate it now available because of technological advances, but lawyers have had the time to come up with clever ways of finding workarounds and loopholes in the laws, and to lobby politicians to modify the law so it fails its original purpose and spirit.

We've all heard the horror stories of artists not being allowed to perform their own compositions because someone else has the "rights". Sure, they may have profited a little from selling away those rights,(usually under severe economic duress) but very often you can't get your own work published at all without first giving up all control to it. For example, it is not uncommon for a magazine to demand that they have sole right to publish your article or story for a certain length of time after they buy it from you. There is nothing wrong with that, they have every right to protect themselves. But more and more often these "first use" claims have been extended, and always to the benefit of the publisher, not the writer. For example, they may demand the right to republish, adapt,
sell, anthologize and otherwise exploit your work for longer and longer periods of time, sometimes in perpetuity. Sure, no one puts a gun to your head and makes you sign that contract, but if you want your work to be read at all, you have no choice but to play their game. And they are big, they can afford to force their terms on you. All you can do is refuse to work at all.

It is possible that after you sell your work, it may languish in a vault for eternity, with you unable to resell it to someone else, say, to have a movie made of it. Of course, if the new owner has it made into a Hollywood blockbuster, you won't get to see a piece of that action either.

I used to belong to a union of boating and marine writers, and evey issue of their newsletter was filled with the latest tricks and scams from the publishing industry to screw the writers by making it harder for them to sell their work to their advantage. As the economy got worse, the tricks got more outrageous.

This arrogance extends far past mere ownership and use rights. Publishers are now demanding that you cannot submit work to them for consideration and evaluaion that has been submitted to other publishers. This not only prevents the writer from using the free market to his advantage by having publishers compete for his work, it is also an expensive inconvenience. I've had publishers reject my work after having held it for six months, a half year in which that asset was denied to me and to the publisher's competitors. In an age where text is transmitted and copied electronically, there is simply no excuse for this other than to deny choice to the worker.

Fortunately, I wrote as a hobby, and could afford to select reputable publications that treated me fairly. Those who earn their living with the pen (or the guitar!) may not have the luxury to do so. It's the same old predator/prey relationship of the employment marketplace. The publishers benefit from there being a lot of talented free lancers out there competing against one another for work. The publisher does not want to compete with his competitors for writers. And in hard times, when many people shut out of the labor market try to sell their skills privately as independendent businessmen, there is no shortage of exploitable victims, or parasites ready to harvest their labor.

There have been technological advances in home publishing, recording and distribution techniques which now allow the little man to fight back. The recording industry has certainly found that out the hard way, lately. But you know they have the money and resources to use the law and the courts to delay their own technological obsolescence as long as possible.

In spite of my provocative title to this post, I am not opposed to all forms of copyright and patent law, but the system is long overdue for an overhaul, especially in the way it meshes with contract law. Besides struggling artists being denied to benefit from their work,
there are also too many producers using patents to protect themselves from fair competition in the maketplace. This is especially scandalous in the case of grossly overpriced pharmaceuticals needed to save human life.. And there are aberrations like people who specialize in patenting names, iconography, trademarks and ideas before they are even developed, so they can then extract royalties from the businesses who have already invested heavily in that livery. This is extortion.

You can always go to court and get your rights, but the law is slow and expensive, and always favors the biggest players. The rich, as well as the poor, are equally forbidden to sleep under bridges.

And Bowser, why can't they sell ketchup in wide-mouth jars?